


Cobwebs

by backarapper



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-19
Updated: 2014-01-19
Packaged: 2018-01-09 06:02:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1142341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/backarapper/pseuds/backarapper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mycroft meditates on his choices in his previous involvement with Greg Lestrade over a small but helpful arachnid.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cobwebs

**Author's Note:**

> Just little Mystrade drivel. Nothing of merit. Brief character reflection and the like. And spiders. Because I like spiders.

Mycroft's pale and spindly fingers wound up and down about his upturned palm, challenging the small, thin legged arachnid in its struggle to cross his skin. As soon as it made it to the other side of his palm, however, the man turned it over slowly, making it cross again from the beginning with a dry smile and a heightened sense of authority.

He watched it, felt the delicate depressions of each striving leg as it trekked across cracking skin, not unlike forcing it across an endless desert, venture endlessly into the land of Nod. He didn't take amusement in forcing such a journey to the spider, but at the moment, he had nothing else to do in the Diogenes club, relishing in the silence of the room save for the shuffling of paper that echoed like the rocking of ocean waves against the shore.

Perhaps that was a lie, not having anything to do. His phone was releasing soft vibrations that sounded infinitely louder in the room of silence every few minutes, but Mycroft chose instead to remain still and ignore, eyes on the spider and the spider alone. How funny it would be if London fell because his attentions were captured by the mere struggles of a funnelweaver, and a daft one at that.

_What is normal to the spider is chaos to the fly._

Mycroft juggled the small creature for a moment, amused at its attempt to fool the shifting landscape of Mycroft's palm as it switched directions back, and then to the side, beginning down his wrist in a scurry. But the ruddy-haired man caught on and placed a second hand, catching it before it could tumble to freedom.

Maybe it was cruel of him, interfering with the life of the small creature helpless in his hand. He was god of so many aspects, but to govern this insect? To determine its destiny? The Holmes elder was torn, trying to choose between picking an end game, or providing more pathways for the spider to escape, upon which so far, it had noticed none. 

Or, at least, chose not to take them.

_And what the hell does that mean, Mycroft?_

Suddenly, anger surged through him. A spider's life was such a meaningless one, so short and worth so little. It was a nuisance. A pest. It experienced years in the measured ticking of a clock that resided somewhere in here, buried deep beyond the shuffling papers and stuttered breathing of politicians' smoke-laden lungs. It was barely worth the time of a day, an hour. A minute. And yet, here was Mycroft, slowly wasting what could be spider-years as he prolonged a journey that was only meant, initially, to take seconds.

Oh, how he hated diverted plans. But what did it matter to a spider? He doubted it had children. It would be at a web if it did. It no doubt had some disposable home somewhere, abandoned as it made its journey to a new nest. Perhaps it wasn't prepared to build a home. But it still had to have a method to catch prey. But what point was there in deducing the affairs of an arachnid?

Yes, a cob was worthless and diminutive and so very much like Mycroft. Mycroft, who had put himself on a minute journey that lasted far too long.

His eyes regarded the spider coldly for a long moment as his mind was lulled by the newspaper susurrus and the distant ticking of a clock.

_"Don't use the word normal with me, Greg. What is normal to the spider is chaos to the fly," Mycroft informed with his usual gelid tones, eyes hooded and bitter as they watched Lestrade with something akin to distaste. Disapproval._

_"And what the hell does that mean, Mycroft?" Greg asked, shrugging his shoulders as he watched Mycroft in turn, seeing the impatience the man held, feeling the tightness in his stare. "I'm just some sodding insect in your web? Here to drain the life out of me and throw me away? Because I don't care what's normal with who or what, because what we have is not normal for us."_

_"That sounds about right," Mycroft informed with a brittle, sarcastic smile. "Abnormal relationship between a parasite and prey."_

_Greg didn't say anything for a long moment, eyes locked to the Holmes progeny with a heartbroken gleam. "Oh," he said gently in the voice of someone lost._

Once snapped out of his brief reverie, Mycroft glanced to his hand, finding it vacant. No spider crawled across the surface, it was nowhere in sight.

_"We should stop here. Everything should. This is going nowhere, don't you think?"_

Upon closer inspection, Mycroft spotted the thin strand of gossamer gleaming vertically from his palm down to the luxuriously carpeted floor. It seemed the spider wised up, dropped away, nowhere to be found.

Admittedly, Mycroft felt mild disappointment that the creature had given up. But who knew when it was going to get easier? Who knew if it ever would?

_"...Yeah. Alright."_

Mycroft sighed and reached over to pick up his phone, ignoring the urgent messages requiring his presence as he instead glared at the last texts he'd exchanged with Detective Inspector Lestrade weeks ago, a heavy sense of ache settling into his chest. Who knew indeed.

After a long moment regarding the digits he knew by heart, Mycroft stood and left the room, selecting the number to call. As the phone pressed to his ear, the distinct ringing flooding his sense, he considered for a brief moment that a spider could share in the chaos of a fly.

_Click._

"Mycroft?"


End file.
